Helen & Vance's Journey on the Maiden World Cruise of the Seabourn Quest from Fort Lauderdale to Singapore from January 5th until February 28th 2012.
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Thursday, 1 March 2012

Singapore And Home – The Last Post

Monday February 27th – Day 54

Woke up to thunder, lightning and pouring rain…welcome to
Singapore.We had to vacate our suite by 8am this morning - although I
did stretch it to twenty past eight – so then it was off to breakfast in The
Colonnade with our hand luggage. Despite the rain we sat outside under the
covered area and had our last breakfast (for this year!!) on The Quest. We
spent most of our time saying goodbye to friends who were either leaving as
well or continuing on for the next segment…lucky devils!!

From Cape Town to Singapore we have travelled 6575 nautical
miles which makes our total half world cruise distance 15333 nautical miles and
we enjoyed every one of them. Thank you Seabourn.

We disembarked from deck five at 9am and we were waved off
by Michelle, Vitor and the captain who said “Where are you going, I thought you
were on to Dubai”….. for a moment I thought somebody had forgotten to tell me
that Seabourn had extended our stay but no it was just a confused captain
moment so after kisses and hugs all round we left the ship and our quest was
finally over…boo hoo.

I’d like to thank Seabourn for giving us another wonderful
experience and also the crew and staff, who make Seabourn so special, for all
the wonderful service and the friendly ambiance they created. Special thanks
also go to Barry Hill of Thomas Cook Cruising who worked tirelessly all last
summer to get us moved from waitlisted
to confirmed booking; to John Delaney and Melody Kelly of Seabourn Seattle for
their help in getting us our midship (almost) V2 suite; the captain who steered
us safely and is one of the most friendly and approachable people I’ve met;
Adam from The Patio bar whose smile really brightened my day and John who
seemed to work day and night to bring us such wonderful entertainment …..don’t
forget to sleep John!!

As for the guests, the mix of ages and nationalities made
for a wonderful eclectic mix and it was a pleasure to spend time with them ….. apart
from one or two guests who were unfortunately obnoxious and rude… to both other
guests and staff …. luckily the ship was large enough to be able to avoid their
presence most of the time (well the guests could but the staff just had to
smile and bear it)…. and hopefully we will never meet them again.

After standing in the queue for over an hour to clear
immigration…. a private car was waiting to drive us to the Conrad Centennial
Hotel where we had a day room until 7pm.After checking in we decided to walk to Bugis Street market for some
last minute shopping and yes, I did buy another pair of shoes and a beautiful white
ceramic watch.

As it was nearly twelve noon we were frantically looking for
somewhere that sold Corona beer and for something to eat…starving by now…but it
was not to be, so we settled for a Big Mac and a large coke….not quite the
same.

On the way back to the hotel we called in at Raffles Hotel
and in the Long Bar we met some of the Quest entertainment staff enjoying the
traditional Singapore Sling and eating the monkey nuts.

The afternoon was spent swimming and lazing by the pool on
the fourth floor and enjoying the last of the sunshine.

At 7pm our private car returned to drive us to Changi
Airport where we met quite a few of our fellow Brit cruisers who were also on
the 11pm, thirteen hour BA flight home. Luckily we were travelling business
class so after a goodly dinner and several drinks we managed to sleep in our fully
flatbed seats for over eight hours.We landed at Heathrow at 4:38am where our friend Peter was
waiting to drive us home.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this blog as I’ve certainly enjoyed
writing it. Big thanks to Vance for his accompanying picture show complete with
his captions to my photos …what a team!!

I can’t resist saying…. “I’ll be back”…. because we have
booked to be on The Quest next January for another half world cruise from Fort
Lauderdale to Hong Kong via The Panama Canal……sailing the right way round the
world this time….well right to left/east to west …if you see what I mean.